The Lion In The Snow - Snapshots
by frazzledsoul
Summary: AU. After the flames die down and the prophecies are fulfilled, Jon Snow sits on the Iron Throne with a newly married Jaime Lannister as his hand. Snapshots from a universe where the ships sailed and we got the royal tag team we deserved.
1. The Ruler and the Killer

_These fics are based on Braime Tumblr song prompts, so I decided to set them in my favorite AU: the rumored "original ending" where Kings Landing is burned after a fair fight between Dany and Cersei, Dany flies back to Essos, and Jon ends up King with Jaime as his Hand. Jaime is instituted as a check on Jon's potential power after he kills Cersei and becomes a dual King/Queenslayer and his marriage to Brienne is intended to help unify the kingdoms._

_Although it isn't part of what I've written, some background: Sansa is Queen in the North, Tyrion is her consort, and Arya took Gendry adventuring with her. Also, Jorah lived and has retired to Bear Island and married a nice woman his own age. If I write any more of this, I may revisit those plot threads._

_Because these are song prompts, we're not going to get into all of that. But as long as the story in this AU remains unwritten by a writer far superior to myself, here are my contributions._

_Fair warning: what I've written is not kind to Cersei or Dany, as I generally frown on the massacre of thousands of innocent civilians. If you don't believe that Dany's actions were wrong in canon, you probably won't like this story, either._

The images solidified in Jaime's mind as he made his way through the streets.

Charred skeletons. Screaming children. Rampaging soldiers. Blood. Smoke. Mangled limbs. Chaos. He couldn't keep any of it straight.

His attention strayed to a singular feral roar that echoed above him.

He looked up to the massive black beast soaring through the air, the would-be conqueror clinging to his back as she flew away from them. He watched as the dragon spit out more flames of orange in the distance, the cries of those that that she hadn't quite incinerated ringing through the air.

Jaime didn't know what was worse: seeing his home erupt in flames of wildfire or be burned alive by the dragon queen's rage. He had ruined his own name to avoid seeing this happen decades ago, only to see the same fate befall it after his former lover had threatened to rain her own form on destruction on the city.

What had been the point of it all?

He remembered what Jon had confessed to him the night before he left for Kings Landing.

_I don't know what Daenerys is becoming._

Whatever grip of insanity that had start to possess Cersei months ago had now spread like an infection. Jaime didn't envy the task set before Jon: he was sworn to Daenerys's side as her consort, the announcement of their betrothal being one of the forces that had set this vicious cycle in motion. Had it been the threat of another couple linked by blood that had convinced Cersei to begin plotting to murder her own subjects by wildfire? Or was it his defection, his relationship with Brienne, the death of their youngest ill-conceived child? He had been able to walk away, but not before nearly costing Brienne's life in the process. He didn't doubt that Daenerys would be equally ruthless.

_Lose and you will answer to me._

Did it matter? Probably not. He didn't expect he would survive to find out.

Cersei still had the wildfire. He was the only one who could stop her from destroying what was left of the city with her own source of fervid revenge

_Once a kingslayer, always a kingslayer._

The weight of the dagger on Jaime's waist somehow felt lighter as he approached the ruins of the throne room.


	2. Let's Call it Love

Jaime suspected that it didn't exactly fit within courtly tradition to celebrate one's honeymoon with a sword fight.

Then again, he and Brienne weren't exactly the model of a traditional couple.

The Hand without a Hand and Brienne of Tarth had been wed on the Sapphire Isle with the king in attendance, incandescent shimmers of sunlight reflecting off of the waters that gave the island its name. A political marriage by reputation, a love match in essence, dishonor melding with honor, the Lannister who had slew not one by two monarchs married to the sworn knight and future Evenstar.

The unspoken secret amongst the rulers of Westeros was that this match was the true secret weapon of the newly crowned king, often bewildered and confused by the game he had unexpectedly inherited. Jaime tried to avoid thinking about the implications of this: if he had been granted the hand of the woman he loved as a "punishment", he was more than happy to take it.

The hard work would come later. For now, he had the delights of this moment: the sunshine glaring on their swords, parrying thrust for thrust, back and forth, back and forth, as the devilish gleam in Brienne's eye caught his own.

_Show me your darkest side and you better be my bloody match_

"Yield!" Brienne demanded as the tip of her sword jolted into his chest, and Jaime's blood sang with heat and desire.

She was still stronger than him.


	3. Where Did You Run To

The summer heat of King's Landing was proving to be unbearable today.

Brienne sat in what was rumored to be the shadiest area of the Red Keep (lies! vicious lies!) keeping a careful eye on the young children sparring with the supposedly respectable rulers of the kingdom a few feet away from her. She shifted slightly, trying to ignore the sweat coating her skin and adding an additional level of discomfort to what was afforded to her by her swelling belly.

The master had told her the newest babe would be here in two more moons, but Brienne hoped that his estimates were off. She couldn't bear being pregnant in these roiling temperatures much longer.

Jaime and Brienne's daughter Joanna was at the center of the melee in front of Brienne, grinning mischievously as she tried to rout her younger brother. Selwyn, as cautious and methodical as his sister was reckless, hit her with a spar she wasn't expecting, and she crashed down to the ground, pouting as Selwyn looked up at Jon and Jaime with a glint of triumph in his eye.

"Careful!" Brienne called out as Samwell Tarly's son Jon reached out to help Joanna from off of the ground.

"She's fine!" Jaime insisted as he guided the sword of Sam's daughter Meleesa.

"She's a better swordsman than the rest of this lot," Jon insisted as he attempted to maneuver Sam's oldest son into a position facing Meleesa.

"I won't dispute that," Brienne replied, laughing as Joanna danced on her feet, ready to take on Jon's namesake as her next opponent.

Jon chuckled as he stepped behind Joanna and pointed to Meleesa's parries as Joanna nodded at him, utterly captivated.

Brienne mused again on the most popular topic of gossip in the royal court: why wasn't the king married yet? Managing the kingdom was a collaborative effort, with she and Jaime handling most of the business around the capital while Jon frequently spent his time in the North and various reaches of the kingdom. Rumors of far-flung mistresses in various corners of the kingdom persisted, but Brienne didn't trust most of them: a few ham-fisted attempts at royal matchmaking had proven to her that Jon's seduction skills were likely as ridiculous as her husband's had been on that long-ago night after the dead had been defeated.

If there was anyone else in Jon's life, it was an exuberant ginger personality who lived beyond the wall. And Brienne knew it was extremely unlikely that anyone would believe that gossip if it happened to get out.

_Being a king, I guess it's all fine and well._

There was time for that in the future, Brienne supposed. As for now, there was her burgeoning family as well as Sam's, linked to Jon through friendship, loyalty, and the royal tag team effort that had somehow brought peace to the kingdom after so many years of blood and hardship.

Their clan was in good shape. Brienne only hoped it wouldn't be too long before their newest member joined them.


	4. The Story of the Kingslayer

King's Landing stunk of ash, rubble, and spilled blood for a long time.

Like most things about the realities of his new title, Jon got used to it.

The reconstruction was slow. Dany had succeeded in destroying most of the city, and even in these southern climes winter did its best to ravage the people who had survived. Jon, Jaime, and Brienne found small pockets of the remaining buildings in which to establish quarters and set up rebuilding the kingdom bit by bit.

Jon thought he would hate being King, but he didn't. Most of his friends and allies were here with him, and he often visited those who had survived the wars and settled in various parts of Westeros to rebuild their own lands. He may have instituted Jaime as his Hand to limit his power, but that power never felt like it was something that belonged solely to him: it was shared, between Jaime, Brienne, and himself. Somehow between the three of them, they had managed to make the bloodshed and war stop.

The city was painstakingly rebuilt. Marriages took place. Babies were born. Winter came and went, and gardens were planted in the spring. The air felt safe to breathe again, and it didn't smell like anything close to death.

It would never take root in his lungs like the breezes of the North, either of the kingdom that his sister ruled or of the sprawling villages that contained the Free Folk that felt like a truer sort of home to him. But sometimes when he walked the streets and saw the once devastated survivors of Kings Landing flourishing, he felt something close to peace.

His heart may have belonged to someone who lived beyond that wall deposited in the north of Westeros, but Kings Landing also felt like home. He felt fuller for belonging to more than one place or people. When he walked in the godswood outside of the newly reconstructed (if smaller) castle, it almost felt the same as it did back in Winterfell. And he didn't feel guilty about it anymore.

Was this how it was supposed to work, ruling five kingdoms at once? He didn't know. He didn't feel like a Targaryen, even after all of these years. And sometimes when he thought of how he had gotten to this position, he was at even more of a loss.

Luckily, he had the younger generation to remind him of these things.

"Why do they call Papa the Kingslayer?"

Jon froze.

He looked down at Selwyn's earnest brown eyes staring up at him as they strolled around the outer reaches of the godswood. He had taken a rare afternoon off to give an exhausted Brienne a few hours of peace, and now he was confronted with Jaime and Brienne's children's favorite pastime – asking endless questions.

_If Jon can ride dragons, why is it a bad thing?_

_What does Uncle Tyrion mean when he says you should never be** too** close to your sister?_

_How come we can't learn to throw knives like Gendry and Arya?_

_How exactly did Jon's brother become a tree?_

"Who – who has been saying that?" Jon choked out. He looked back a few feet to where the children's nurse was trying to charm a couple of his guards. They didn't seem to be aware of their conversation. Jon didn't know whether he should be relieved or annoyed.

"They say he's not just a Kingslayer," Joanna piped in as she ran back to them. "All the children in the Keep say that Papa's a Queenslayer, too." She handed Jon a handful of lavender flowers. "Mama said we could make flower crowns."

Flowers crowns Jon could handle. This discussion? Not so much.

Selwyn let go of Jon's hand to trot a few feet ahead of them and pluck flowers from the grass. Jon led Joanna to a stone bench on the far side of the forest, and hoped that Joanna would become distracted from her current line of thought.

No such luck. They had spent about ninety seconds threading her bounty together before she asked again.

Jon sighed and watched as Selwyn ran back over, to them, trailing a line of dirt and scattered petals in his wake. "Isn't this something you should discuss with your mother?" he asked.

"Mama's tired all the time since the baby came," Joanna said, her chubby fingers attempting to tie one stem to the other. "And Daddy's in Biggarden – "

Jon smiled. "Highgarden," he corrected her.

"Mama says that it doesn't matter what everyone says about Papa," Selwyn said from the grass underneath them, where he had become distracted by a caterpillar. "As long as they listen to him."

"You mother's right," Jon said. He grimaced. "But I'm not sure I like hearing about this kind of talk."

"But why do they call him that?" Joanna asked.

Jon sighed. "Are you asking me because you don't want to ask your mother?"

"We want to ask you," Selwyn said, looking up at Jon.

"We know you'll tell us the truth," Joanna added.

"Jon, please," Selwyn begged.

He knew he was being manipulated by the little urchins and that he'd have to answer to Brienne later. But sometimes that was enough: just hearing his name said like that was enough to convince him. Just Jon.

He'd never gotten used to hearing "your grace" pour off other people's tongues when he was addressed, not even when he was ruling one kingdom as opposed to five. Joanna and Selwyn didn't see him as any kind of monarch, but merely as their parents' friend who taught them how to swordfight.

Who else did he have that with? Sansa, back in Winterfell, sometimes. Tormund, beyond the wall – but their relationship had long ago morphed into a bond that paid no heed to boundaries. When the weeks stretched into months and he was stuck here in King's Landing without the colder air to settle his lungs, and the responsibilities piled one top of each other, sometimes he ached for someone who didn't know him as what he was expected to be.

Jaime and Brienne ruled the realm as much as he did, if not more. But it had been a very long time since they had known him as someone without power or titles or authority.

"A long time ago," Jon began, "there was a war."

"There were lots of wars," Selwyn stated, seemingly unimpressed.

"This was before most of them," Jon replied. "You father was sworn to protect and follow the king. He tried to do the best that he could. But the war took its toll on the king. He wasn't in his right mind anymore. He didn't want to protect the people. He didn't trust them anymore. He thought that they were his enemies. He wanted to hurt them. And your father stopped him."

"He killed him?" Selwyn asked, gazing at Jon in rapt attention.

"He did," Jon said, trying not to contemplate how Brienne would be planning a kingslaying of her own when she heard that Jon had been the one to relay this information to her children. "He did it because he had to."

"Was the king bad?" Joanna asked.

"He didn't start out bad," Jon said. "He became dangerous. Your father didn't want to do what he did. And he suffered from it, for a long time."

"What about the queen?" Selwyn asked. "Was she bad?"

Jon remembered Cersei and Joffrey, his crippled brother, his dead father and brother. Something still clutched in his heart when he thought of Ned and Robb, long ago felled by this war between his family and the Lannisters. Somehow the pain of those old betrayals never went completely away, even as the new alliances had shifted and morphed as his family's enemies multiplied.

Jaime had become an ally during the war for the living, and Jon had grown to know and trust him enough to not let that old pain linger. He still wondered if Ned and Robb would have accepted Jaime's help, if they would have been willing to sit as king knowing that someone who had conspired against their family was sitting beside them. That they would have trusted someone who had murdered his sovereigns twice, and that they would have trusted that man not in spite of the things he had forced himself to do, but because of them.

Ned and Robb hadn't had to fight the battles that Jon had. They hadn't had to watch their lover be murdered by the people fighting beside them, hadn't allied with her side afterwards and been murdered for it. They hadn't fallen in love with a woman they thought they could trust to fight beside them, only to see her turned into someone who would rain death and destruction upon innocents before her adversary could get there first. They had died with their moral certainty intact, but Jon hadn't had that courtesy.

Because he had come back.

Would Ned or Robb approve of Jon taking a male lover from the Free Folk years after taking a female one when he was expected to marry a highborn girl to solidify his authority? Would they have approved of Jon keeping Tormund in his life as the years went by? Would they have approved of Sansa marrying a Lannister not once but twice, the second time because she wanted to?

Jon had loved Targaryens and Wildlings. He had lain with men and women because he had chosen it. Sansa and Tyrion were raising Lannister sons in Winterfell. Arya's daughter had (technically) been born out of wedlock on a ship with a Stark sigil before she and Gendry could make their way back to Storm's End. Ned Stark's children may have ruled kingdoms, but many of the old systems of honor had proved to be quite flexible once the old enemies had been vanquished. Their unwillingness to live up to the old standard of behavior no longer seemed significant.

They had learned that honor was no longer the ideal it had once been. It was a personal test forged in blood and sacrifice and the loss of your name. Jon knew far too much of what it was like on the other side of that loss to condemn Jaime for what he had done.

Of course, there was no way to explain that to two children who hadn't reached the age of seven in the midst of a conversation you shouldn't have been having in the first place.

"She didn't start out bad," Jon told Joanna and Selwyn. "I don't think anyone does. But the wars stretched on for many years, and she lost a lot of people that she cared about. She stopped caring about the people. She wanted to hurt them. And your father had to stop her. And this was hard for him, because he had once cared about her very much."

"She was related to us," Joanna remarked.

Jon gulped.

How was he going to explain_ that_?

"She was," he told the children.

"She had children," Joanna said. "Did she want to hurt her children?"

Jon breathed a sigh of relief that at least one troublesome topic had been successfully averted.

"They had died a long time before we went to war with her," Jon said softly, remembering how the light had gone out in Jaime's eyes the few times they had talked about his first lost family.

_I wanted to believe Cersei was a different person before they died, he had confessed. But I know that isn't true now._

"She missed her children very much," Jon added. "But it didn't make the things she did right."

He thought of Loras Tyrell, incinerated in the Sept along with so many others, and the one survivor who had emerged years later, her face scarred, her ambition shattered. He had made it his mission to make sure no one had to suffer the same fate that they had ever again.

"So did Papa do the right thing when he killed the Queen?" Selwyn asked.

"Aye," Jon said. "I think he did."

He didn't know how it was possible, but whatever gods existed had somehow granted him a mercy in sparing him from having to make the choice that Jaime did.

He thought of Dany the last time he had seen her in the ruins of the Great Hall. He remembered the look on her face, her blue eyes blazing and undefiant as she had ordered Drogon to melt the Iron Throne before flying off towards the horizon.

He remembered waiting fearfully for months to hear of news of the return that had never come. He remembered feeling relieved that she had survived, and was safe and happy far from the reaches of power.

He remembered that the first decision he had made on his own since he had been crowned had been to leave her that way.

He remembered how Jaime hadn't fought against it.

"It was the right thing," Jon affirmed. "It was a horrible thing, but it was the right thing to do."

"But you're the king now," Joanna said, frowning.

"I am," Jon affirmed.

"Are you scared of Papa?" Selwyn asked.

"I'm not scared of him," Jon said. "Your father is a good man. It's his job to remind me that the people aren't my enemies. That I have to work to protect them instead of them protecting me. He's done a very good job so far."

"I don't think you're like them," Selwyn said. "Like the other king and queen. I think you're good."

Jon smiled and handed the flower crown to Joanna as they finishing threading it together. "I'd like to think so," he said. "Your Papa's there to make sure I stay that way."

Joanna stood on her toes and placed the flower crown on Jon's head. "I think this will help," she suggested.

Jon smiled at her, wishing it had only been as easy as the little girl imagined it.

He knew that his next conversation with her mother wouldn't be.


	5. The Story of the Kingslayer (con)

_So this kind of got out of control._

_First of all, I have no business writing this chapter. I've only read through the first book of ASOIAF, so this is purely based on show canon. This is as much as I'll write about politics in this universe or any other, so please excuse the implausibility of my ideas. I also know it's silly to write about Jon being king and for canon Jonmund to exist, but my head wouldn't let go of the idea, so here we are. Future chapters will probably focus more on the ships and be much less complicated._

_The AU my head has built up for this concept diverges from the show in a lot of ways, but the main thing I want to stress here is that the period leading up to the war with Cersei (basically, what would have been 8.04 in show canon) took place over a longer period of time and involved a lot of subterfuge on Cersei's part. Jon and Dany were engaged during this time period and Dany's deterioration did not take place overnight. I also kept some characters alive who were killed in The Long Night._

_Oh, and Jon gave Yara her independence because there is no plausible reason not to._

_Before we proceed with this piss-poor attempt at me trying to write about KL politics, I just want to say two things. My comments section is an open forum and if you don't like my story, it's fine with me. It is not a place to sift for evidence to prove that any of my commenters are *insert insane conspiracy theory here*. Anyone who intends to retaliate against commenters on my story should find a new hobby ASAP._

_However, if you directly call me names or refer to me as a synonym for part of a woman's nether regions again, I will delete your comment._

_That said, please enjoy and leave a review if you so desire._

"I have to sit down," Brienne announced as she lowered herself to the chair and winced in discomfort. Her eyes met Jon's in an iron glare, standing out from the rest of her wan complexion.

"I need wine," Brienne said sharply after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Aye," Jon said as he poured a cup of wine and slid it across the table to her. He sat down in the chair opposite hers, waiting for Brienne to unleash the rest of her anger on him.

She had been unnaturally quiet ever since he had returned with the children and his oblivious retinue and confessed his unexpected revelation once the children had scampered off to their rooms. In public, the Lady Commander was dignified, stately, stoic – in private, she had an opinion on anything and everything, judiciously and eloquently stated, but always, always articulated in full.

Jon wasn't used to the silence.

"This isn't strong enough," Brienne professed. She sighed and her glare softened slightly. "What's that terrible drink that the Free Folk prefer?"

"Goat's milk," Jon informed her. "Makes it hard to keep a clear head. We don't keep any here."

"So it's one of those things that are better left beyond the Wall, then?" Brienne asked, arching an eyebrow.

Jon grimaced and got up to pour himself a cup of wine. He wasn't going to take the bait on that topic.

Even after all of these years, there were some parts of his life he wasn't comfortable openly discussing.

"The wall's a glorified trading post ever since the Dead fell," Jon reminded her. "Edd keeps some of this stuff on hand, but only for special occasions."

"Boredom?" Brienne suggested.

"The trade routes with the Free Folk are robust enough to keep him busy," Jon told her. "Edd and Lyanna Mormont are in open communication with a lot of the communities that have been established. He doesn't have as much free time as you would suspect."

Brienne sighed. "I need a second cup before we discuss what you told the children."

Jon got up to refill her drink and passed the cup back over to her. Brienne drained half of her second cup, and the color seemed to return her face as her eyes hardened again.

Jon felt his stomach start to clench.

"I know our responsibilities aren't as clearly delineated here as they should be," Brienne began. "I'm your advisor just as much as Jaime is. Your authority is a lot more flexible than it would be in a conventional arrangement. And maybe mine is as well. There's never been a Lady Commander of the Kingsguard, much less one that's married and a mother. So maybe I accept more help than I should."

"I relaxed the celibacy requirements for the sake of you and Jaime," Jon said gently.

"Don't pretend that it was merely mercy," Brienne scolded him. "There was politics behind it, too. And that was your idea."

"The politics was secondary," Jon insisted. "I couldn't do this alone, and Jaime would be of no use to me if he didn't have you. You know that, Brienne. You've known that for seven years."

"That's not what I'm attempting to argue, your grace," Brienne said angrily.

"Don't do that," Jon retorted. "We had an agreement a long time ago you wouldn't do that."

"I know you're more involved with my children than most people would think was proper for a sovereign," Brienne replied, the edge fading from her voice. "I'm not sure I know what's proper or not in this situation. And I've appreciated it. But I should have been the one to tell them that their father killed who he was sworn to protect. That should have been my responsibility. Mine and Jaime's. Not yours."

"I'm sorry," Jon told her. "I didn't intend to be the one that told them. It just – "

"You can face down councils and smallfolk in five kingdoms and make them bend to your will, as well as negotiate with the Free Folk and your sister's lords, but you can't thwart the demands of two manipulative Lannister children?" Brienne asked.

Jon didn't have an answer for that.

Brienne laughed. "They told you were the only one they could get a real answer from, didn't they? That you would tell them the truth? Unlike their very exhausted parents, who kept telling them they'd find out the real story when they got older?"

"Aye," Jon admitted.

Brienne drained the rest of her cup. "I didn't know how to tell them," she said softly, the anger in her eyes being replaced by resignation. "How do you tell your children to obey their parents, their nurses, their king when their father broke those vows twice and was rewarded for it? How can I tell them to not hurt other people? How I can tell them not to murder each other?" She sighed. "I was hoping I could have another ten years before they could be prepared to hear it. And even then, I wouldn't even know how to begin."

Jon folded his hands over each other. "I guess maybe it's as difficult as telling your sons that you're married to the person whose family once plotted to murder yours," he said. "That their uncle and grandfather is dead because of their father's family."

Brienne laughed bitterly. "You're not going to be the one to tell your nephews that information, though. That will be Sansa and Tyrion. It should come from their mother and father."

"You're right," Jon conceded. "It wasn't me. It shouldn't have been me. But Eddard and Jason are just younger than Joanna and Selwyn. Sansa knows she can't delay that conversation forever."

"The manner in which this unfolded is not my fault," Brienne declared.

"No, it's not," Jon agreed. "But they didn't seem that upset. I think they've been hearing these kinds of rumors about Jaime for a long time."

Brienne sighed. "What did you tell them?" she asked.

"I told them that Aerys and Cersei didn't start out wanting to strike back against their subjects," Jon began. "That Cersei lost whatever good was in her after her children died. Jaime only killed them because they were going to hurt other people. And that his job is to keep me from becoming the same person."

"And their response was – "

"Selwyn told me I was a good king," Jon said. "Joanna gave me a flower crown. I don't think I told them anything they haven't already heard."

"They didn't ask about Daenerys?"

Jon shook his head. "They don't know how Cersei is related to them," he said. "Or that her children were also Jaime's."

"I guess that's a little bit of a relief," Brienne replied. "Please promise me you'll let me handle that part by myself when the time comes."

"Aye," Jon said. "I think the appetite for that kind of gossip burned away with the rest of the city, anyway. You've got time."

"They'd rather make up rumors about you instead," Brienne stated. She focused her stare on Jon as he grunted and got up to refill his cup.

"Do you want children, Jon?" Brienne asked when he sat back down.

"I'm not sure whether I want them or not has much to do with it," Jon told her.

"Other kings have reigned without issue," Brienne reminded him.

"They have offshoots of their family line to carry on the legacy," Jon retorted. "I do not."

"Most of King's Landing is convinced that you have a mistress hidden in every corner of this kingdom," Brienne said. "They believe that the only reason you haven't married is because you can't choose between them."

Jon guffawed. "I take it that my first few attempts at a marriage alliance have disappeared from everyone's memories, then?"

"Jaime was trying to assist you, Jon," Brienne chided him. "Unfortunately, you lacked the wisdom to know not to seek his advice."

"Not every woman is as accommodating as you were, Brienne," Jon replied, a hint of a smile appearing on his face. "Besides, there were other reasons."

"Daenerys?" Brienne asked.

"To a point," Jon admitted.

"Tormund," Brienne said softly.

Jon picked up his cup and Brienne's and returned to refill them. The silence hung thickly in the air.

"These chambers are as secure as your own, you know," Brienne told him after a few minutes. "I know you and Jaime have spoken about this."

"I don't want this subject talked about openly," Jon said tersely. "I can't risk any threat being posed against Tormund or the Free Folk."

"You're not their king," Brienne said gently. "No one's going to be able to get to you through them."

"No, I'm their ally," Jon barked back. "The strongest one that they could have. That bond's as important to me as any other one that I could have. I can't betray their trust."

"Is that a fear that Tormund shares?" Brienne asked.

Jon looked down at his drink. "No," he admitted. "It's mostly me."

"You wouldn't be the first king to have an unconventional private life," Brienne said. "There's a precedent for attractions of this sort having their own place in royal life besides marriage."

"I was shamed my entire life for being a result of an unconventional attraction," Jon retorted. "My entire existence is the result of an affair that caused a war. Do you think I'd inflict that on whoever had the misfortune to be married to me if I could avoid it?"

"But if it's in your _nature_, Jon – "

Jon shook his head. "Brienne, it's not like that. It's simpler than you think it is."

Brienne cocked her head at him. "You're not like – "

"No," Jon said softly. "I love Tormund. He's an important part of my life. I did love Daenerys. That was real. It was genuine. It wasn't politics. I know there's plenty of reasons to doubt that, but it is the truth. I loved her. I wanted to marry her."

"Why didn't you?" Brienne asked.

"I don't have an answer for that," Jon said. "It was strategy, at first. The longer we waited the more we thought it would draw Cersei into a trap. And the further we got into the war the more both of us changed. We weren't fighting for it anymore. We could have gone into the godswood at any point and had the ceremony performed, but we didn't. But it wasn't because I didn't desire her."

"I'm just trying to understand your position here, Jon," Brienne said.

"My position on _what_, exactly?" Jon asked.

"Marriage. Children. The Targaryen dynasty," Brienne retorted.

"I don't feel in any hurry to settle those questions," Jon replied. "And I don't want my private life to become the kingdom's business."

"Jaime and I have and will do everything possible to keep that from happening," Brienne stated. "But the young man that you are right now may not be in a position to be the father you want to be when the time does come. Take it from someone who became a mother long past the time when it was considered possible. You'll have reason to want those years back."

Jon sighed. "What if I didn't have children? What if we could build a case for Arya's daughter being my heir?"

"The connection the Baratheon bloodline has to the Targaryens is based mostly on rumor," Brienne asserted. "And it isn't a legitimate claim."

"We've already dissolved the celibacy claims to half of the institutions in this kingdom," Jon argued. "We've given the Iron Islands and the North their independence. Who's to say we can't rework the lineage in a way it hasn't been done before?"

"Your ambition's getting the best of you, Jon," Brienne replied. "I'm not sure it's enough to outweigh someone finding Daenerys and getting her to reassert her claim. Especially if she has issue, legitimate or not."

"Dany isn't going to hurt anyone else," Jon replied, sounding more confident than he felt. "If she wanted to reassert her claim, she would have tried again by now."

"I've never agreed with you or Jaime when it comes to Daenerys," Brienne reminded him. "But let's say you're right, and Daenerys intends to stay where she is. Would you want to stay here until your heir comes of age? Or would you plan to abdicate and disappear north?"

She knew him too well. "What I want and what's possible are two different things," Jon said.

"Yet there's no celibacy order to force you to go to when you abdicate," Brienne reminded him. "Unless you change your mind about the Faith of the Seven."

Jon groaned. "Absolutely not," he asserted.

"But if leaving were a possibility for you – "

"I would take it," Jon admitted. "If I felt comfortable leaving my responsibilities here with someone who could handle them."

The silence hung in the air between them for a few minutes.

"Jaime and I don't want to rule these kingdoms by ourselves," Brienne said.

Jon took another sip of his drink. "I wasn't suggesting that."

"I know you weren't," Brienne said. "In fact, my pride's a little hurt by your other implication."

Jon turned his stare on her, suddenly fierce and wolfish. "I've got my own reasons for wanting the Faith to remain in their own sphere and to protect those who would have been the Militant's victims."

"I know," Brienne told him. "And as your advisor, it's my job to tell you when you've pushed too far."

"Have I?" Jon asked. "I rebuilt the Sept. I've done everything I can to protect those who want to worship. If I've allowed people who I share more in common with than I'm willing to admit to share my counsel, I don't think it cancels my other obligations out."

"It's a balance," Brienne agreed. "But it takes work to keep it. I don't think you've pushed too far. I think it's good that you've found a purpose in your role here other than mere duty. And Jaime and I share those goals, Jon. Even if they aren't as personal to us as they are to you."

Jon let his eyes met Brienne's, a touch of softness having returned to them. "This title was never about mere duty to me," he asserted.

"I agree," Brienne conceded as she lifted her cup to clink against Jon's. "It's been seven good years for all of us. Here's to at least a couple more."


	6. The Bear and the Maiden Fair

It took two years, seven months, three weeks, and four days for Jaime and Brienne to run out of nurses in King's Landing.

Not that Brienne was counting.

She couldn't keep it straight in her head how the patterns of her life worked. Her childhood had seemed to drag on interminably, an endless slog of alienation, rejection, and misery. Then she had joined Renly's cause and met Jaime and all of those events had happened so quickly: meeting Renly at Tarth, his wedding, the tourney, Renly's death, Catelyn, Jaime, Harrenhal, the bear, colors and sights and memories both so tender and so painful that they all converged together, starbursts behind her eyes when she thought of them. Then it was a slog she barely remembered before finding Sansa, the Boltons, the fight against the dead, and then…that rare season of utter bliss, as if time had stopped at Winterfell and allowed them a period between the wars just to breathe.

She knew it was ridiculous to think back on that period of time as any sort of respite. Jon and Daenerys had been planning a war. There was subterfuge, secret campaigns, a spy mission involving Gendry and Arya and her shapeshifting abilities that Brienne had never fully understood. It had seemed a game played by young lovers coming into their power, drunk on affection and triumph and the rightness of their cause.

It wasn't until Bronn had died at her hand in an attempt to assassinate both her and Sansa that they realized it was no longer a game. Cersei had been driven mad by the forces aligned against her. If the last of her children were dead, no one else's house was going to survive, either.

Brienne understood that feeling more than she wanted to now that she was a mother herself. And that terrified her. Maybe as much as anything else that had happened.

It had been a blur, a maelstrom of politics and war and high emotion and significant life events she thought she would never, ever experience, and the most mystifying of all of those things was that she was at the center of almost all of them. She was a mother, a wife, the Lady Commander of the Kingsguard, helping to run the five kingdoms beside Jon and Jaime. She wasn't standing in the background, waiting to be included, treasured, listened to, valued. There wasn't a time for her life to stop or slog or breathe, and there probably never would be again. That was part of the curse and blessing of being a mother, of being part of a family, a makeshift dynasty.

That hallowed out period of bliss back in Winterfell? It would never be hers again. Jaime was hers, the babies, Jon, all of these people that loved and needed and depended on her and that she loved back with a fierceness and a clarity that felt more powerful than almost anything she had experienced up to that point.

But the quiet? It wasn't hers anymore. Neither was the loneliness or the despair or the endless confusion about her place in the world, but sometimes she longed for the quiet without all of those other things.

She knew it was part of the past, and she felt both grateful and melancholy about that fact. But perhaps that realization was part of finally reaching adulthood after a very protracted coming of age.

Still, after three days of nursing her two toddlers through an illness that wouldn't kill them but was currently making them very miserable, Brienne did wish for a chance for life to slow down. The next nurse wouldn't be coming until tomorrow, and both she and Jaime were exhausted.

They had gone through every folk song that was appropriate for tender ears over the past few hours, and a few that weren't. Joanna continued to wail and wriggle from her place on Brienne's lap, which would set off her younger brother from her vantage point in Jaime's arms. They had almost run completely out of options.

Until Jaime began to hum a bawdy tune that was definitely not appropriate for the two youngest members of House Lannister.

"Jaime," Brienne warned.

"It couldn't hurt," Jaime argued, attempting to shift Selwyn off of the weight of his bad arm to his good one.

Brienne shook her head, and let him continue.

_A bear there was, a bear, a bear!_

_All black and brown, and covered with hair!_

_The bear, the bear!_

_Oh come, they said, oh come to the fair!_

_The fair? Said he, but I'm a bear! _

_All black and brown, and covered with hair!_

Joanna's screams had gone down by a few decibels, and Selwyn's sobs had softened to whimpers.

Jaime raised an eyebrow at Brienne. She chuckled and nodded.

_And down the road, from here to there._

_From here! To there!_

_Three boys, a goat, and a dancing bear!_

_They danced, and spun, all the way to the fair!_

_The fair, the fair!_

_Oh, sweet she was, and pure and fair! _

_The maid with honey in her hair!_

_Her hair! Her hair! The maid with honey in her hair!_

_The bear smelled the scent on the summer air._

_The bear! The bear!_

_All black and brown and covered with hair!_

Joanna had stopped screaming and was staring at her father, her gaze transfixed. Selwyn was sucking on his thumb, the brown eyes that Jaime said reminded him so much of Tommen, solemn and almost contemplative.

And hopefully for his parent's sake, they would soon be drowsy.

"This is not going to be a nightly lullaby," Brienne stated, trying to sound stern.

"We'll see," Jaime remarked. "Lannisters have a way of making our own rules."

A bliss of a completely different sort enveloped the nursery as Jaime Lannister sang his youngest children to sleep.


End file.
